This cupcake recipe solves the age old question – ‘What the heck am I going to do with all these old bananas?’.

Combined with a maple syrup buttercream, it’s a subtle addition that takes the cupcake from a simple afternoon tea delight to a delicious throwback to breakfast. You could probably eat these for breakfast – no judgement.

In this special cupcake, I debunked the myth that eating pop rocks or popping candy with a fizzy drink or soda would make my stomach explode!

Adding lemonade to the vanilla cupcake gives a fluffy texture and the buttercream icing has a a dash of lemonade to give a lovely fizzy tone. The popping candy is added to the icing just before serving. Opening your mouth to hear the pop is mandatory.

I was very proud to have this recipe linked to in Baker’s Secret’s World Kitchen e-Newsletter.

This is a cake that will immediately transport you to the tropical paradise of your fantasies.

Mama Sweet put this cake in her “Top 10 cakes of all time” but confessed that without a second piece, or three, she might not be able to adequately judge whether it would hold the number 1 or 2 spot. And Mama Sweet knows her cakes!

You all seem to like this cake too, because it was pinned close to 200 times on Pinterest!

Number 5: Nescafe Dolce Gusto

In 2012 I started working with brands and one of my favourite products of the year was the Nescafe Dolce Gusto Genio.

At first glance you might be thinking oh yeah, just another coffee machine. No no my friends, this baby also makes chai lattes, iced teas, caramel latte machiato – the list goes on! It’s the first coffee machine sold in Australia that does hot AND cold bevarages.

My obsession with lemon desserts may or may not be hereditary, or at the very least ingrained in my DNA. Papa Sweet is a fiend for the classic lemon meringue pie and his eyes lit up when I said I would be baking these mini lemon meringue pies as his birthday ‘cake’.

Adriano Zumbo is the King of Macarons, or should I say ‘Zumbarons’. I tried the Zumbaron sample pack which had a mix of macarons including – Salted caramel, Fingerbun, Annunziata chocolate, Milo, Vanilla and Cola.

When I was a little girl I loved going to Donut King for a special treat of a Little Girl donut – a donut shaped like a girl with pink icing, sprinkles and a smarties for buttons. The sickly sweet strawberry icing and sprinkles just made me so darn happy. I recreated this happy memory with my own version of baked donuts.

I am quite partial to a fried food. But let’s get real here. Frying your food is the surest way to make an unhealthy snack. So when the lovely people representing Phillips asked if I wanted to try an appliance that created crispy golden food without the oil I lept at the opportunity. The Phillips Airfyer has become my go-to appliance for making dinner. We use it at least once-a-week and Mr Sticky requests chips even more frequently than that!